Cybersecurity could fall to sequester

The looming threat of sequestration could short-circuit one of the few cybersecurity agreements between lawmakers and the White House: the need for a bigger budget to protect government and private computer systems.

At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in cyberaid, the loss of which could jeopardize efforts to detect digital spies, fight off foreign hackers, research new technologies and hire smart cybersecurity experts — the sort of commitments made in the Obama administration’s budget, and echoed by congressional leaders all year.

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“On a bipartisan basis, there’s an understanding we need to put more emphasis on cybersecurity … and sequestration just comes along and just mindlessly cuts everything by the same amount,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), who led the House cybersecurity task force.

“In some ways, everything is more fragile in its early stages — whether you’re talking about attracting top quality talent or just working out your operations and how things are going to run,” Thornberry said in an interview. “And so I think you can make a fair case that cuts at that stage, especially in an area that moves so fast, could do even more damage than in other places.”

There’s no single entity in the federal government that handles cybersecurity: Responsibilities for protecting federal networks, staving off foreign cyberattacks and researching new technologies are spread across multiple departments and programs. Many of those initiatives would be hit hard by deep cuts beginning in 2013 unless Congress pushes back the target date for its legally mandated cuts, exempts some categories of spending or does away entirely with its fallback, deficit-reduction plans.

Under the worst-case scenario, the sequester would take an ax to funds that lawmakers and the White House alike have tried to boost this year. The Obama administration backed more than $300 million in new cybersecurity spending at the Department of Homeland Security in 2013, among other agencies, and congressional appropriators have delivered similarly high amounts.

Lawmakers even boosted a key DHS program to protect federal networks in the latest continuing resolution Congress authorized to fund the government for the next six months — a bill that otherwise kept most agency spending flat.

Tom Gann, vice president of government relations at Internet security firm McAfee, pointed to the development as “really significant,” noting it “helps confirm what the White House is saying, that cybersecurity is a top five priority.”

But the deep reductions threatened by mandatory sequestration would certainly slow down work to boost the nation’s digital defenses, even as Congress and the White House weigh comprehensive cybersecurity legislation.